27 Aug 2015
Memorial of St Monica
Augustine was dissatisfied with Scripture. He loved the Lord Jesus, but the Church and
the faith just didn’t do it for Augustine.
They didn’t lift up his soul; they left him kind of feeling flat and
uninspired. And so, the young Augustine went
in search of truth and beauty in other places other than the Church and
Scripture and the faith.
He traveled quite a bit, learned a lot; eventually getting
hooked up with some so-called Christians (the Manicheans) who showed him
another way to truth. Along the way, he
met a woman and had a child. And,
finally, he came upon Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who showed Augustine the
truth and the beauty he was looking for . . . right in the Church, right in the
place he started from.
And throughout Augustine’s years of wandering and searching,
his mother, Monica, loved him. She
prayed for him. She lived her Christian
life as an example. And she was there
when he decided to be baptized. Monica
was steady in her faith and in her love of God and of her son, Augustine. And she was patient and hopeful; so very
patient and hopeful.
As we think about our friends and family—and, really, the
whole world—who are wandering in search of meaning and purpose, or who’ve just
gotten out the habit of living their faith, we remember the example of St
Monica: patient, sorrowful, hopeful, and always loving.
And we remember that she shares our wishes, our prayers, our
experiences. She prays with us and for
us. And that’s a beautiful part of our
faith—we’re in it together. St. Paul says to the Thessalonians: “For we
now live, if you stand firm in the
Lord.” We live if you live. As a people bound together in faith and love,
we rise and fall together. When our
friends and family leave their faith, we weep for them—even if they don’t. And when they come back, we’re joyful with
them. We rise and fall together.
After St Monica died, Augustine wrote this: “Being now bereft
of her comfort, so great a comfort, my soul was wounded: it was as though my
life was torn apart, for there had been but one life, woven out of mine and
hers.” Our loved ones may not realize the
depth of love you have for them; they may not realize yet that your life is
bound up with their life. But, until
they do, we pray for them. We remain
steadfast in our faith, firm in our hope, and undying in our love for them. Someday, may they come to see the beauty and
truth of love . . . right back where they started: in the Church, in the family
of God.
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